Castiel's Last Name
by Avenginghunters
Summary: Castiel got out of purgatory, but his grace did not come with him. He is adjusting to life as a human and the trials that come with it.
1. Chapter 1

Castiel sighed and took the pen from Dean's large hand, gulping and looking to his friend for support. "A baby in a trench coat." He thought as he tried to put pen to paper. Dean's offhand remark from so long ago rattled around in him like a marble in a tin can. He was totally useless now. He wanted to give up, to go back to purgatory and suffer like he was meant to, but he was out. Castiel was Graceless, but he was out nonetheless and the Winchesters needed him.

"Come on, Cas. It's just your name and new birthday. Gary will take care of the rest." Dean encouraged as Castiel continued to stare at the nearly blank document. He'd written in the easy stuff. His name, his new birthday (December 17, 1980, a bit younger than Dean.) He was almost set to have the boys' acquaintance Gary forge the I.D, but there were two more blanks on the simple form. A middle and last name.

Castiel thought back on his thousands of years of memory, most of which were fuzzy and distant since purgatory, and realized he never thought about it. He was Castiel, Angel of the Lord. All of the angels' names were unique to them. There could be no confusion. Sam took one look at Cas and knew his dilemma. "For your middle name you could use someone close to you. Someone you've lost. Anything really." Sam smiled and put a reassuring hand on Cas' shoulder. Cas knew immediately what his middle name would be. "Balthazar." He whispered before writing down his dead brother's name. Sam's mouth formed a small half-smile before Dean's loud voice and grabbing hands interrupted them. "Give it here. We don't have all day. Here." He announced before scribbling down a last name and handing it to Gary. "I'll have this ready in a minute." The hunter announced before disappearing into the back of his small store. "What name did you put Dean?" Sam asked. Cas didn't care all that much about his name, but if he was named after some "80's rock legend" he would have a serious conversation with Dean.

Cas was suspicious when Dean didn't answer for a few moments, but Dean spoke, a hint of embarrassment on his face. "Winchester, okay. I figured you could use the name until you go in too much trouble." Sam grabbed both of them by the neck and brought the shorter men into a tight hug. Cas smiled. Maybe he was useless, but he did have the boy's, and family was sometimes all you needed to get through. Cas nearly fell over as Dean wrestled out of his brother's grip. "I'm serious guys, no chick flick moments."


	2. Chapter 2

"I cannot eat that Dean." Cas' face was blanched and the recently fallen angel was nearly doubled over at the small motel room's table. Sam reacted first, grabbing both of his arms and steering Cas toward the bathroom.

"What the hell, Cas!" Dean swore before following his brother and the newest Winchester into the bathroom. They were in the middle of a hunt and the last thing they needed was one of their group sick. Sam ran to the sink for a cup of water as the sound of Cas' retching spread across the hotel room. Dean could only stand close by and hope that it wasn't anything serious.

"What the hell did you give him?" Sam demanded as Cas' vomiting turned into painful-looking dry heaves.

"We were just eating burgers Sam. I mean, we grew up on them. I figured it's a good way to bring in a new Winchester." He answered slightly defensive of his favorite burgers. Sam may have switched to mostly healthier options, but Dean couldn't give up the food he knew so well.

Sam rolled his eyes and helped Cas to his feet after his pale face hit the toilet seat, his body exhausted from the lack of sleep and food he'd had lately.

"Well he's going to have to eat something. He's starting to feel thin." Sam commented as he led Cas to one of the hotel room's bed. It had only been a few weeks since they'd gotten out of purgatory, and both Sam and Dean had noticed Cas picking at his food and even going so far as hiding it.

"We can't make the man eat, Sam." Dean growled as he finished his own burger. He wasn't mad, just frustrated that he helped save his friend, but he couldn't save the whole man.

"I'm sorry." Cas whispered. He sat up on the bed, dejected and staring miserably at Dean.

"It's not your fault Cas. You've just got to get used to everything." Sam encouraged.

Cas shook his head and continued speaking, "I cannot eat what you eat. Do you not remember facing the horseman Famine?" Sam and Dean nodded. It wasn't an easy thing to forget. The powerful horseman had Cas eating raw hamburger on the floor of a bloody restaurant, and then it clicked.

"Cas! I completely forgot about the burgers you ate!" Sam's voice was dripping with concern. Dean burst out laughing and did not settle for at least a minute.

"It's the burgers?" he laughed harder when Sam looked upon him with disapproval written all over his face.

"We can buy something else to eat Cas, especially if they make you sick." Dean clapped Cas on the back and reached for the Impala's keys that lay on the table.

Cas shook his head, "I just didn't want to be a burden." He smiled weakly at the brothers. Dean rolled his eyes before pulling Cas to his feet and opening the motel room's door.

"I've already got one brother that I have to look after. Another grass nibbling pretty boy won't hurt too much."


	3. Chapter 3

"You're sure you've got this, Cas?" Dean asked as Cas adjusted the Impala's leather driver's seat. Dean breathed deeply to calm himself. He didn't often let anyone drive the impala, and he'd never let anyone who had never driven before get behind the wheel. He'd put too much work into his baby to let others drive it willy-nilly.

"I can do this, Dean." He assured with a small grin. Cas adjusted the rear-view mirror like Sam had told him to do and breathed deeply before clicking the seatbelt into place. He mentally ticked off all of the things that the manual he'd read 12 times told him to. It felt like his new life was thrusting situations on him constantly that he wasn't prepared for. Sam assured him that it was a perfectly normal human experience, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He laughed softly at a sudden wish. If his brothers and sisters in heaven could have their grace taken from them for a while and experience humanness, then they wouldn't be so quick in discounting the children of god they were supposed to love.

"I mean, we can always steal a car for you to practice in." Dean offered. Cas glared at him, "Temporarily. Of course. I just don't want you crashing her." Sam slid into the backseat and grabbed Dean's shoulder, giving his brother a reassuring shake.

"Don't worry. He's got this. Just sit back and relax. Plus, the highway's deserted. If he manages to run us off a perfectly straight road then we'll know he's not cut out for driving." Dean nearly grabbed the keys out of the ignition at the mention of crashing his baby, but Castiel was quicker. He turned the key and shot Dean an "I dare you" look. Dean grumbled something about getting ganged up on and waved for Cas to get going.

Cas pushed down on the accelerator only to hear a loud vroom and receive an exasperated look from Dean and a loud laugh from Sam.

"It's in park, buddy. D for drive." Dean said. Cas chastised himself briefly. He'd read that in the manual, but the nerves he felt were overriding his own common sense. He breathed deeper before putting the car into drive. Park, Reverse, Neutral, and Drive. He could do this.

The drive was smooth, only a couple of close calls with the side of the road and a single passing car made Dean reach reflexively for the wheel, and Cas stopped as smoothly at a lonely red light as can be expected for a first time driver. After less than an hour, they reached the edge of a small Iowa town with a big ghost problem. Dean told Cas to pull to the side of the road. He may be okay for long stretches of desolate road, but Dean wasn't going to take any chances. He traded places, but stopped in front of the car as they passed one another.

"You did good. You can ride shotgun." Dean punched Cas's shoulder and patted the Impala's hood before taking his place behind the wheel. Cas felt unusually excited by driving. He loved people, but he had to admit that not very many things he experienced as a human were remarkable. The road ahead, and himself behind the wheel was the closest feeling of freedom he'd had in his human life. It was good.

They pulled off the shoulder and after a few comfortably silent moments Dean spoke, "You did much better than Sam's first time. I swear he almost peed his pants." Cas jumped involuntarily as Sam reached up and shoved his brother, making the car swerve dangerously over the road. Cas wasn't sure, but he definitely felt like roughhousing while driving was not mentioned in the manual.


	4. Chapter 4

"Dean! I've got this. Get them out." Cas yelled over the screams of multiple humans. They'd found a small gathering of demons and vampires who'd been seen together in multiple cities and small towns all over the U.S. No one knew why in the hell two different monsters were working so closely together. The only thing they knew was that they had abducted at least six people along the way and needed to be stopped.

"Cas be careful!" Dean yelled back before grabbing two of the younger humans and beckoning the other 4 to follow him out of the decrepit house. Cas fell back into the fighting stance he knew well. He may not have his grace, but that didn't make him helpless.

A demon whose vessel was an older woman in a cheap suit ran at him with a speed Cas had never been impressed with when he was an angel. Now that he was human with human senses, he barely had time to move before the demon was upon him. He reached instinctively for the demon's forehead, attempting to smite them like he had when his grace was within him. The demon cackled menacingly before slamming Cas to the ground by his neck. The woman sat across his stomach, holding his hands down above his head with only one of her meaty hands. She was very heavy and Cas had only just begun eating regularly again. He didn't know if he had the strength to fend her off until Sam and Dean returned.

"How the mighty have fallen. Castiel. The Winchester's little bitch." The demon grabbed the fallen angel's neck with the remaining hand. "I'll bet they'll be glad when I choke the life out of your pathetic husk. Dragging around a piss poor excuse of a hunter such as yourself can't be easy." She squeezed down hard around Cas's neck. He thrashed and struggled against the heavy woman as spots began to form in his eyes.

"I," he choked, "am not," the demon grinned and slightly loosened her hold on the angel's neck. If there was one thing that Cas knew, a majority of demons could be distracted by drama or human suffering long enough to doom themselves.

"Amuse me." She mocked.

Cas used the relaxed hold on his neck and the demon's own cockiness to flip her over. "I am not fucking useless!" he yelled before beginning the exorcism. He'd memorized the Latin only a day after ascending from purgatory. He finished the recitation and stepped back proudly as the demon screamed and its black cloud disappeared through the floorboards. Seconds later, Sam and Dean ran in, demon slaying knife and shotgun at the ready. Dean looked first to Cas and then to the shallowly breathing woman lying on the floor.

"You okay Cas?" Sam asked before bending down to make sure the woman would live.

"Yeah," he replied tiredly, "This was no trouble at all."


	5. Chapter 5

"Sam! Did you have someone over last night?" Dean pulled the hotel stationary off of the refrigerator before grabbing a beer for himself. He normally wouldn't have paid much attention to the stationary taped to the fridge; Sam had a tendency to leave notes to himself all over if they stayed in one place for very long, but the handwriting grabbed his attention. It was large, elegant, and in cursive. He hadn't seen Sam write in cursive for years, but definitely knew that that was not his brother's hand.

"Be back soon." It was a simple note, not threatening or of any import, but an unknown like that did not sit well with him.

"Sam!"

Sam emerged out of the bathroom just as Dean opened his mouth to yell again. He was dressed in a pair of pajama pants, and his normally smoothed hair was messy and tangled. His eyes were bloodshot.

"You think you could make any more noise?" Sam asked, rubbing his forehead and reaching for the mini fridge handle, "I was up all night trying to find out what in the hell is happening here." Dean stared Sam down, hoping for some sort of tell. Something that would expose his little brother's "betrayal". Sam just gave him an odd look and reached for a water bottle and half a sandwich that would be his breakfast.

"You were here, alone. The entire night?" Dean probed before getting the box of cereal they'd bought the night before out of the kitchen's single cabinet. Sam was in mid-bite when he knitted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. He can play dumb all he wants, Dean thought while pouring his lucky charms. (Neither had grown out of their childhood favorite.)

"Cas was here, but other than that there was no one else. Why?" Dean handed Sam the note and leaned back on the counter.

"Explain that." He urged. He wasn't trying to be a hardass or mother-hen his brother, but the kid had reamed Dean enough about not focusing on hunts that it only seemed right to give him a hard time for the same.

He laughed, "I'm not going to rag on you for taking some time off, but you've at least got to have the decency to admit it. Especially when your fling's leaving possibly ominous notes around the house." Dean waved the piece of paper, grinning wider than the Cheshire cat. There hadn't been a lot of joking recently. They'd just killed a monster that was responsible for killing 4 large families, and none of them could find it in themselves to crack jokes with any regularity. Some things were just a bit too heavy some days.

Sam rolled his eyes and grabbed the note after a brief struggle with Dean's other hand.

"I hate to disappoint, but I don't recognize the writing. And I already told you. I was busy last night."

Sam wouldn't lie about something so stupid as having someone at the hotel while he was gone. It didn't matter all that much as he was just trying to give Sam a hard time, but he couldn't help but read the note in a malevolent light. Be back soon.

"If it wasn't someone for you, then whose is this?"

Dean barely got the words out before Cas came through the door at a dead sprint. He was holding a milk jug, leaking furiously from a cut near the handle. Grocries fell all over the floor, oranges rolling under the table, and a 5 pound bag of sugar spilled half its contents.

"Cas." Dean caught a glass jar filled with what looked like apple butter seconds before it hit the ground.

"Sorry for the mess. Thought I'd get some food. All we had was cereal, jerky, and beer. I accidentally dropped the milk on the way in."

Realization hit Dean as soon as he saw the now milk-sodden note. Castiel hadn't been the note leaving type pre-fall, but he was human. Writing notes probably seemed pretty human to him now.

"Did you write this?"

Cas looked up from the milk jug whose stream had weakened considerably and nodded.

"Figured you'd like to know where I was."

Sam rolled his eyes and laughed before heading to the couch, "I'm going back to sleep."

Cas cocked his head to one side, a gesture that Dean was fond of, but that he had been seeing less and less. A downside to Cas's incredible learning curve.

"You've got the girliest handwriting I've ever seen." Dean commented. The confusion left Cas's face.

"Good penmanship is not a masculine or feminine quality. You could use some work on your handwriting as it is. I could barely read that incantation you copied from that rotting book in the bunker cellar. Much less anything you do in a hurry." Dean left Cas mumbling about penmanship and the importance of it while he surveyed the damage to the motel's parking lot. At least twenty dollars of groceries made a trail from the corner of the motel to their door. Dean smiled.

He may miss some of Castiel's mojo. Smiting, poofing, and the like, but he wouldn't trade that for anything. He liked his angel, whether he was an angel or not.


End file.
